George would be our best black presodent, best Clinton presodent, and best George presodent since Warshington. He has experience will all the day's biggest issues.
Gun cuntrol? Bop Gun Nuclear power? Atomic Dogg Relationship with Congress to keep the gubmint running? Decades working alongside Parliament Funkadelic Legalization of marijuana? Dope Dogs Space exploration? Mothership Connection The crackdown on Americans' freedoms to order what they want? Do Fries Go With That Shake? Martial Law? Martial Law Negotiating wiff terrorists? If Anybody Gets Funked Up, It's Gonna Be You
This Third World classification of access to our healthcare system is due primarily to two things:1) greed in the healthcare and insurance industries; and 2) the uninsured population in the USA that still must be cared for by hospitals and other providers passing on the cost to be paid for by the insured.
Wrong on those counts. See SouthenDawg's post for further clarification.
If #2 were correct, we would see a dramatic reduction in costs when everyone has coverage. We have not, nor does anyone predict that taht will result in cost reduction for the average American.
I don't know where you live, but Idaho doesn't have universal coverage and neither do many of the red states in America. SouthenDawg is an insurance industry propagandist and I wouldn't believe anything he posts of this subject. Idaho has come to their senses by eventually pushing aside the nullifiers and set-up the means through assistance from state agencies for people to buy insurance this coming month or the next. At present, the uninsured are still uninsured at least here any many other places such as Texas.
As for greed and cost, the American healthcare system comprised of providers and insurers is the epitome of why America's so-called free market economy is a myth and the alltime biggest con game ever perpetrated on the American people. The first part of any solution is to get rid of the healthcare insurance industry by outlawing it completely. The second then would be to take usury out of the healthcare provider system. Hospitals and clinics and the vast systems that own these institutions can be public non-profit or private for-profit, but they must not have IPO's and stockholders.
"Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows). The worst performer was copper, with a profit margin of minus 56.6 percent." 2009 US NEWS report
Them greedy SOB's!!! Damone is right, when he says health insurance should be a major medical plan.
This Third World classification of access to our healthcare system is due primarily to two things:1) greed in the healthcare and insurance industries; and 2) the uninsured population in the USA that still must be cared for by hospitals and other providers passing on the cost to be paid for by the insured.
Wrong on those counts. See SouthenDawg's post for further clarification.
If #2 were correct, we would see a dramatic reduction in costs when everyone has coverage. We have not, nor does anyone predict that taht will result in cost reduction for the average American.
I don't know where you live, but Idaho doesn't have universal coverage and neither do many of the red states in America. SouthenDawg is an insurance industry propagandist and I wouldn't believe anything he posts of this subject. Idaho has come to their senses by eventually pushing aside the nullifiers and set-up the means through assistance from state agencies for people to buy insurance this coming month or the next. At present, the uninsured are still uninsured at least here any many other places such as Texas.
As for greed and cost, the American healthcare system comprised of providers and insurers is the epitome of why America's so-called free market economy is a myth and the alltime biggest con game ever perpetrated on the American people. The first part of any solution is to get rid of the healthcare insurance industry by outlawing it completely. The second then would be to take usury out of the healthcare provider system. Hospitals and clinics and the vast systems that own these institutions can be public non-profit or private for-profit, but they must not have IPO's and stockholders.
"Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows). The worst performer was copper, with a profit margin of minus 56.6 percent." 2009 US NEWS report
Them greedy SOB's!!! Damone is right, when he says health insurance should be a major medical plan.
Insurance companies do not make profits based on balancing claims versus premiums, Their profitability depends on how well they invest (or gamble) the premiums they do receive to produce earnings sufficient to not only cover their operating and claims costs, but also hopefully exceed such costs providing some net profit. As gamblers playing the Street casino investment games, some retail consumer oriented sureties such as those heavily in healthcare and auto insurance markets can at times suffer low profitability because of poor return on investments and thus can only survive by increasing premiums. Healthcare insurance if not heavily regulated and occasionally subsidized can become very risky and should not be part of any healthcare system designed to provide universal coverage.
Damone, your argument style is to constantly redefine things = increasingly progressive waste of energy to me. It's like pulling into a parking spot, then constantly changing spots because the angle that most people see your car at can constantly be improved upon, but unfortunately to the people walking by, it's still the same car. Bill Maher does this. He memorizes his talking points, then constantly redefines and backs out of a bad position he's taken. I like how you frame that economics is not about politics, yet you constantly talk about how the gov fucks up the economy by intervening...so then it is political......
BTW, the answer you were looking for is that free markets don't exist, because governments always make decisions which intrude. OK. I take it that was the talking point your were pivoting from.
If govs don't step in in bad recessions and spend $ on large public projects and regulate things, very little can prevent unemployment from skyrocketing and lasting potentially forever. I suspect a "true free market system" would have millions->billions of deaths in every subsequent recession from unemployed people starving.
To smart-guy: AIG is an insurance company. AIG insured those high-quality AAA-rated mortgages in those CDOs. They failed to realize the scope of the market they were insuring and failed to pay. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_International_Group Fortunately the gov bailed them out, and didn't allow the web of the insurance industry to collapse and fail.
Also, alcoholic beverages get consumed more in a bad economy. One of the few good industries to invest in during recessions.
A few points...
Government as a % of GDP was around 3% throughout the 1800s (it is currently 30+%)...We had recessions and unemployement but there isn't a clear difference between # and severity of panics in the 1800s (pre fed) vs 1900 (with fed).
Why can't we have a truly free market health care and rely on charity hospitals to care for those who don't have insurance. Also, many who don't have insurance now know that for the worst cases they will still get free health care in an emergency. It might actually make economic sense for healthy individuals to not get health insurance right now because the are covered in an emergency (and go bankrupt at worst, but its a low risk and if you are young, you can recover from that). It also begs the further question of why i should insure a 25 year old kid who decides to gamble and not get health insurance - and further obama care doesn't really solve this either...a 25 year old earning 35K a year can, under obamacare, pay 1% of his salary annually as the Noninsurnace tax, and he's in the same spot with no insurance.
Regarding AIG, many would argue that AIG and the other to big to fails took thse risks because it was known that the government would come in and bail them out if they got in trouble. There was no downside to their bet so they took outsized risks. Without the implicit backing of the government, there would prob still be failures, but i think in general firms would be much more conservative.
Comments
Gun cuntrol? Bop Gun
Nuclear power? Atomic Dogg
Relationship with Congress to keep the gubmint running? Decades working alongside Parliament Funkadelic
Legalization of marijuana? Dope Dogs
Space exploration? Mothership Connection
The crackdown on Americans' freedoms to order what they want? Do Fries Go With That Shake?
Martial Law? Martial Law
Negotiating wiff terrorists? If Anybody Gets Funked Up, It's Gonna Be You
George Clinton in 2016!
Them greedy SOB's!!! Damone is right, when he says health insurance should be a major medical plan. "Overall, the profit margin for health insurance companies was a modest 3.4 percent over the past year, according to data provided by Morningstar. That ranks 87th out of 215 industries and slightly above the median of 2.2 percent. By this measure, the most profitable industry over the past year has been beverages, with a 25.9 percent profit margin. Right behind that were healthcare real-estate trusts (firms that are basically the landlords for hospitals and healthcare facilities) and application-software (think Windows). The worst performer was copper, with a profit margin of minus 56.6 percent." 2009 US NEWS report
Them greedy SOB's!!! Damone is right, when he says health insurance should be a major medical plan.
Insurance companies do not make profits based on balancing claims versus premiums, Their profitability depends on how well they invest (or gamble) the premiums they do receive to produce earnings sufficient to not only cover their operating and claims costs, but also hopefully exceed such costs providing some net profit. As gamblers playing the Street casino investment games, some retail consumer oriented sureties such as those heavily in healthcare and auto insurance markets can at times suffer low profitability because of poor return on investments and thus can only survive by increasing premiums. Healthcare insurance if not heavily regulated and occasionally subsidized can become very risky and should not be part of any healthcare system designed to provide universal coverage.
Government as a % of GDP was around 3% throughout the 1800s (it is currently 30+%)...We had recessions and unemployement but there isn't a clear difference between # and severity of panics in the 1800s (pre fed) vs 1900 (with fed).
Why can't we have a truly free market health care and rely on charity hospitals to care for those who don't have insurance. Also, many who don't have insurance now know that for the worst cases they will still get free health care in an emergency. It might actually make economic sense for healthy individuals to not get health insurance right now because the are covered in an emergency (and go bankrupt at worst, but its a low risk and if you are young, you can recover from that). It also begs the further question of why i should insure a 25 year old kid who decides to gamble and not get health insurance - and further obama care doesn't really solve this either...a 25 year old earning 35K a year can, under obamacare, pay 1% of his salary annually as the Noninsurnace tax, and he's in the same spot with no insurance.
Regarding AIG, many would argue that AIG and the other to big to fails took thse risks because it was known that the government would come in and bail them out if they got in trouble. There was no downside to their bet so they took outsized risks. Without the implicit backing of the government, there would prob still be failures, but i think in general firms would be much more conservative.